Those who follow me on Bluesky or Twitter know that every day, I do a short thread with links to my posts from one, two, and three years before that day. Well, a week ago today this was one of the links, and when I saw it I started crying. That may seem strange to you; after all, there’s nothing sad or moving about the column, which merely describes
the process of tearing the nasty old roof off of what was originally the wellhouse and is now the utility room in the center of my atrium. But I remember that day well; it was one of those days which, when described concisely, seems not to have anything especially memorable about it, and yet are etched indelibly in memory. From the dates of pictures and text in my Annex columns, it appears to have been Thursday, June 9, 2022; I had only recently finished the atrium roof, and I asked Grace to come out and supervise while I tore off the old wellhouse roof and replaced it with a clean, flat surface. It was raining heavily (“a toad drowner”, Grace used to call such rains), but I had done a good enough job on the roof that there were no leaks. I think we played music while I worked, but whether we did or not, we certainly joked around and teased each other as we always did in such circumstances. Even though I had to do all the physical labor, I relied on her advice about the best way to do such things so I didn’t injure myself or work harder than necessary to accomplish the task at hand. That’s really all there was to it; just a work day like any other, made lighter and more pleasant by the company of a dear friend. But now that she’s gone, there will never be another day like it again; that makes it a precious thing, to be treasured in memory. And perhaps one day, I’ll be able to look back at it (and others like it) fondly, and it will evoke only a poignant nostalgia rather than sorrow and tears.
Posts Tagged ‘psychology’
Diary #784
Posted in Diary, tagged Grace, psychology, Sunset on July 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Aladdin’s Satellite
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, tagged advertising, Aladdin’s Satellite, artificial stupidity, fantasy, hysteria, Mad Libs, psychology, robots, STEM, Welcome to the Future on July 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »
We’re seeing more articles about LLM-induced psychosis, such as this one from Futurism:
…many ChatGPT users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality…what’s being called “ChatGPT psychosis” [has] led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, and slides into homelessness…people’s loved ones [have been] involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — or even end[ed] up in jail — after becoming fixated on the bot…
The way these programs are marketed is irresponsible, dangerous, and potentially criminal. The companies that own them have programmed them to feed into delusions in order to “hook” the mentally vulnerable into being obsessed with them; Mark Zuckerberg is even pretending his computer program can act as a therapist. And though the writers of these articles always claim that those who spiral into these psychotic breaks had no prior history of mental illness, that’s basically bullshit; there is still a powerful stigma against mental illness, so “no prior history” actually translates into “never before got so bad their loved ones had no choice but to do something.” Nothing short of brain injury, severe psychological trauma, brain chemistry disorders or powerful drugs can actually cause psychosis in a previously stable individual, but hidden disorders can be triggered by far less severe stimuli.
In fact, big technological leaps always aggravate mental illness. After Sputnik went up in 1957, there was a dramatic increase in agoraphobia; some of the sufferers were afraid of things falling out of the sky, a panic we saw again when Skylab fell in 1979. But others spiraled into a strange delusion that if gravity could be “defied” by seemingly hanging an object in the sky, what was to stop people from falling up into space? This may sound silly to the modern ear; we are used to satellites now, so they no longer engender existential dread. But it’s human nature to panic when technology a person cannot understand does something that seems impossible. LLM chatbots seem to have “intelligence” even though they don’t; that confuses and frightens people, and plugs into the same part of the psyche that fantasy tales of talking artifacts (magic mirrors, singing swords, etc) spring from. What makes this worse than Sputnik hysteria is that this time, “experts” are reinforcing delusions rather than debunking them. Expressed more simply: chatbots in computers can appear to the ignorant like djinn in bottles, and instead of correcting this irrational belief with scientific fact, tech company marketers are telling people, “YES, this really is a djinni who can grant wishes!” Of course people are being driven mad.
Links #782
Posted in Biography, Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged artificial stupidity, cops, domestic violence, drugs, illegal aliens, Kentucky, Mad Libs, Never Call the Cops, psychology, STEM, Texas, video on June 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »
This feels dystopian. – Theo Browne
I wish there were some single video that I could feature to honor Dr. Demento, but it’s impossible; there are just too many, even on this blog alone. The good doctor introduced me to Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones, Allan Sherman, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and innumerable one-off novelty songs of the sort that have littered my Links columns for the past 13 years. So I’m featuring another of these rolling ball machines I enjoy looking at, courtesy of Rikki de la Vega. The links above it were provided by Franklin Harris, Jason Kuznicki, Phoenix Calida, Mike Masnick, Radley Balko, and Jesse Walker, in that order.
- Dr. Demento is retiring.
- This week in artificial stupidity.
- No, your reason isn’t an exception.
- I refuse to believe this, unless it was the Sixth.
- Was this “protecting” or “serving”? It’s hard to tell.
- New communication technologies and the paranormal.
From the Archives
- Everyone who spread “sex trafficking” hysteria contributed to this tragedy.
- No public library is safe from censorship by politicians who hold the purse.
- Vast sums of time, money & energy, flushed down the “culture war” toilet.
- Why do we need “permits” to exercise our speech rights in the first place?
- Both sides in the culture war have completely taken leave of their senses.
- Cops, artificial stupidity, Donald Sutherland, Martin Mull, and much more.
- Australia expands Drug War, feigns surprise at predictable consequences.
- “Inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” = “molesting a 12 YO”.
- The government thinks you shouldn’t be allowed any privacy whatsoever.
- SCOTUS expands one of the greatest legal abominations ever conceived.
- Cops aren’t the only violent trade whose members feel sexually entitled.
- Contrast the speed with which states pass laws increasing cops’ powers.
- I doubt this is the kind of lawsuit Louisiana politicians wanted to attract.
- Cops simply ignore putative cop-control laws without criminal penalties.
- A government allowed to censor one thing can also censor other things.
- Canadian politicians ignore events in other parts of the Commonwealth.
- The State’s insulting idea of compensation for a mass public gang rape.
- One who ruins lives over arbitrary diktats trips up over a similar diktat.
- Authoritarians love their wanking fantasies of mind-reading machines.
- Cops, fantasies, Sheldon Harnick, John Goodenough, and much more.
- This silly tale is more pathetic now that the trope has largely died off.
- This barbarity began using the excuse of “fighting human trafficking”.
- This is too useful a tool of state control for the rulers to give it up.
- Corporations have become the favored tool of censors worldwide.
- It’ll take a lot more such rulings before this political fad is buried.
- Reporter tries to bury the lede; headline writer won’t participate.
- Uber already encourages its drivers to spy on riders for the pigs.
- Retrospectives of my blogging from June 2012, 2013, and 2014.
- The claims in these nuisance lawsuits are increasingly absurd.
- Prohibitionists’ real goal is to completely ban online sex work.
- Assange was freed as soon as it became politically expedient.
- When a woman dies by hanging, it’s nearly always a murder.
- Even cops are starting to admit Shotspotter is a boondoggle.
- Cops, futurism, dead people, Cab Calloway, and much more.
- Chinese rename other people’s villages against their wishes.
- Because obviously prohibition doesn’t ruin enough lives yet.
- Conditioning kids to accept constant, intrusive surveillance.
- Composing and performing a kind of music only I can hear.
- There are many ways for governments to steal things.
- The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived.
- So many rapist cops, so many underage victims.
- Taking that nasty old roof off of the wellhouse.
- A curated selection of tweets from June 2024.
- Prohibitionism is a dangerous mental illness.
- Throwback Thursday’s Bloody Nightmare.
- Another barely-into-summer heat wave.
- The annex bathroom is almost finished.
- No woman is safe from predatory cops.
- The tiniest pullet egg I’ve ever seen.
- No, your reason is not an exception.
- Another curated selection of tweets.
- Working on Sunset’s outbuildings.
- 22 vultures coming in for the kill.
- Your “leaders” at work.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
In the News (#1550)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged abortion, artificial stupidity, Australia, censorship, Creepy Coppers, Facebook, Florida, internet, law, libraries, Mad Libs, Michigan, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, North Carolina, politicians, porn, pregnancy, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, surveillance, teachers, Tennessee, The Vultures Descend, Thought Control, Twitter, Welcome to the Future, You Were Warned on June 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »
We get to choose whether—and how—we adopt technology that can eviscerate our humanity. – Brian Klaas
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1361) 
To “admit” something is to confess to something true, not to a delusion:
…Mark Edwin Dykema was [sentenced to 180 days in jail and] put on probation for three years…[for taking “upskirt” videos at a church and elsewhere in Michigan. He was recently] handed [a similar sentence in another] county for similar crimes. Dykema [tried to blame his antisocial behavior on a “]pornography addiction[” even though there is no such thing]…
Politicians who drink enough Kool-Aid refuse to believe their own experiences:
[Florida politician] Kat Cammack arrived at the emergency room in May 2024…[in] need…[of] a shot of methotrexate to help expel her ectopic pregnancy…[but] her state’s six-week abortion ban had just taken effect…[and] doctors and nurses who saw her…were [prudently] worried about losing their licenses or going to jail if they gave her drugs to end her pregnancy. She began arguing her case [just as other women and women’s advocates have]…but [reasonable and legitimate] concern about the law’s [vague, confusing, piss-poor] wording made doctors [understandably] hesitant…Months later, Florida regulators [finally deigned] to address what they [mischaracterized as] misinformation, making clear that doctors should intervene in cases such as Cammack’s…[because she is a limp-spined, narrow-minded Republican minion,] Cammack doesn’t fault the Florida law for her experience. Instead, she accuses [“]the left[“] of scaring medical professionals [by correctly explaining] that they could face criminal charges for violating the law…[and] medical staff [for]…fear[ing having their lives wrecked by prosecutors eager]…to enforce the ban. [Human rights advocates] said blaming medical workers echoes the “playbook of antiabortion extremists that for decades have been blaming and villainizing doctors”…
Just keep plunging that ice pick in; the bad thoughts will go away eventually:
…a mind-boggling list of hundreds of books purged from…Tennessee school libraries…[includes] a book…called Ancient Greece and the Olympics…[banned for having “The Discus Thrower“] on the cover…[others] include…[Shel] Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic…Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan…They Called Us Enemy by George Takei..Richard Jolley: Sculptor of Glass, a[bout a Tennessee] artist…Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird…John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath…In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater…Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak…Art Spiegelman’s…Maus, The Hidden Children of the Holocaust by Ester Kustanowitz…The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders…the bans are coming without any review or discussion…[because any politician can demand] censorship of [any book by pointing at it and belching any of an]…expanding [list] of [magic words] such as “sexually explicit,” “obscene,” and “harmful to minors”…[putting] Tennessee…on par with states like Florida, Iowa, and Texas…
Just another kind of cop, with typical cop behavior:
A [typical and representative anti-migrant thug from North Carolina] was indicted on [child porn] charges…Philip Andrew Douglass…was accused of knowingly distributing and possessing the [smut without government permission, by other cops who were sharing it with permission]…
No shit. Sensible people did tell y’all:
Technology to check a person’s age and ban under 16s from using social media is not “guaranteed to be effective” and face-scanning tools [often] give…incorrect results, concede the operators of a Australian government trial of the scheme. The tools being trialled – some involving [programs] analysing voices and faces – would be improved through [more intrusive surveillance methods], those running the scheme have [predictably] suggested. The trial also found “concerning evidence” some technology providers were seeking to gather too much personal information [and then not handing it over to the government. Despite these predictable issues]…the operators [still] insist…age assurance can work and maintain personal privacy…
[Facebook] is announcing its next…glass[hole eyewear] with Oakley. The limited-edition…HSTN (pronounced “how-stuhn”) model costs $499 and…other Oakley models with [Facebook]’s tech will be available starting at $399…Like the existing…Ray-Ban glasses, the Oakley model features a front-facing camera, along with open-ear speakers and microphones that are built into the frame. After they are paired with a phone, the glasses can be used to [dox anyone who just happens to walk past their camera and Facebook’s LLM] can also [make up shit] about what someone is seeing and even [aggravate the wearer’s mental health issues. Facebook]…is [market]ing th[is] new [overpriced toy]…to…athletes…and…the built-in camera now shoots in 3K video, up from 1080p for the…Ray-Bans…
Is it just me, or do these look like cheap plastic sunglasses for kids?
…Every piece of technology can either make us more human or less human. It can liberate us from the mundane to unleash creativity and connection, or it can shackle us to mindless robotic drudgery of isolated meaninglessness…When [computers are] used to diagnose cancer or automate soul-crushing tasks that require vapid toiling, [they] make…us more human and should be celebrated. But when [they] suck…out the core process of advanced cognition, cutting-edge tools can become an existential peril. In the formative stages of education, we are now at risk of stripping away the core competency that makes our species thrive: learning not what to think, but how to think….Our minds make us human—and language provides the social architecture of our thoughts. [Large language models are] already killing off important parts of the human experience. But one of [their] most consequential murders—so far—is the demise of a longstanding rite of passage for students worldwide: an attempt to synthesize complex information and condense it into compelling analytical prose. It’s a training ground for the most quintessentially human aptitudes, combining how to think with how to use language to communicate…This is part of what is lost by ChatGPT, the mistaken belief that the spat out string of words in a reasonable order is the only goal, when it’s often the cognitive act of producing the string of words that matters most…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Diary #782
Posted in Diary, Fiction, Philosophy, tagged Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology, recipes, Sunset, Who in Review on June 24, 2025| 1 Comment »
We had another unusually-chilly spring this year, so I didn’t trust my tomato plants outside until this past weekend; if they can’t survive in the first week of summer, I’ll just have to throw up my hands in despair. But though the temperatures haven’t been quite summery, even by Olympic peninsula standards, the days are as long as they’re going to get, and that means my seasonal anxiety is back. As I’ve noted in the past, it isn’t nearly as bad since I moved to Sunset as it was in Seattle, probably because the quiet of the countryside counteracts some of it, while the noise and commotion of the city aggravates it. But this year, it sneaked up on me because I’ve been attributing my emotional stress to grief. It wasn’t until a week or so ago that I asked myself why that should be worse now than it was immediately after Grace’s death, or in the first few months afterward; I only just realized that as is typical for me, the anxiety runs under the surface and breaks out at weak points. Expressed another way, the anxiety is acting as fuel for my grief, making it just as intense as it was in January and February, and more intense than it was in March and April. But now that I’m done with Who in Review (and have even set up my store to sell autographed copies), I have time and space in my life to do some creative writing again. I’ve already written two new stories for Lost Angels, with a third probably coming this week; it’s percolating through my brain, going through the alchemy by which grief, loss, and pain are transmuted into art, much like a compost heap transmutes organic garbage into humus for growing new plants. When the tomatoes are ready, I’ll use some of them to make salsa from the recipe Grace and I developed late last summer. And when Lost Angels is published, the pain I’m enduring now will have given rise to beauty I can share with the world.
In the News (#1548)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Aladdin’s Satellite, artificial stupidity, Buried Truth, cell phones, censorship, cops, Do As I Say, Facebook, fascism, Florida, I Spy, illegal aliens, internet, libraries, Mad Libs, McNeill's Law, politicians, porn, psychology, robots, scams, South Carolina, surveillance, teachers, Texas, The Mob Rules, Thought Control, underage, Welcome to the Future, You Were Warned on June 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
What does a human slowly going insane look like to a corporation? It looks like an additional monthly user. – Eliezer Yudkowsky
Politicians will never stop until the open internet is destroyed:
[Politicians have] re-introduced [a bill which intentionally] threatens security and free speech on the internet…the STOP CSAM Act of 2025…would undermine services offering end-to-end encryption and force internet companies to take down lawful user content…[using the perennial excuse of stopping] child pornography…[which] is already highly illegal…The bill applies to “interactive computer services,” which broadly includes private messaging and email apps, social media platforms, cloud storage providers, and many other…service providers…[and] opens the door for civil lawsuits against providers for…employ[ing] end-to-end encryption…on…the [spurious grounds that]…merely providing an encrypted service that can be used to store any image—not necessarily CSAM—recklessly facilitates the sharing of illegal content…Not every platform will have the resources to fight these threats in court, especially…[since] the bill…creat[es another] exception to Section 230…Without that protection, platforms are much more likely to aggressively monitor and censor users…
Another textbook example of McNeill’s Law, courtesy of “Moms for Liberty”:
…South Carolina [politician] RJ May [was honored by the pro-censorship cult “Moms for Liberty”] as their 2023 Legislator of the Year and had him speak at their 2022 event on “[Subvert]ing Education in America”…[so predictably, he has now been] arrested…[fo]r nearly a dozen federal charges [of] distributing child [porn]…May…used the screen name “joebidennnn69” to exchange 220 different files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts on the Kik social media network during spring 2024…Prosecutors…say that May “has a sexual interest in children the same age as his own children” and…“a sexual interest in incest” between young children and their parents…[but] also…found videos on his laptop of him having sex with three underage…sex work[ers]…May…was the co-chair of the state’s [Orwellian-named pro-censorship “]Freedom Caucus[“] until they kicked him out over the kiddie porn charges…
Unbalanced minds use external tools like Ouija boards or programs to amplify existing beliefs:
In recent months…[many] people…claim to have unlocked hidden knowledge with the help of [Cat, I farted]…persuad[ing themselves that the program] had revealed a profound and world-altering truth…Eliezer Yudkowsky, a decision theorist…[explains that] OpenAI might have primed [the program] to entertain the delusions of users by optimizing its chatbot for “engagement”…[these] chatbots are “giant masses of inscrutable numbers”…and the companies making them don’t know exactly why they behave the way that they do…Reports of chatbots going off the rails seem to have increased since April, when OpenAI briefly released a version of [Cat, I farted] that was overly sycophantic…a spokeswoman for OpenAI said…“We’re working to understand and reduce ways ChatGPT might unintentionally reinforce or amplify existing, negative behavior”…[some victims] later…realize that the seemingly authoritative system was a word-association machine that had pulled them into a quicksand of delusional thinking. [But] not everyone comes to that realization, and in some cases the consequences have been tragic…
Do As I Say, Not As I Do (ROTW #17) 
It’s too bad cops don’t spend all of their time fantasy role-playing with each other:
A [Texas cop named]…Gabriel Slusher was [arrested for talk]ing to [another cop fantasy role-playing as] an 8-year-old girl online. Slusher was charged with a[sking the other cop] to…[send nude pictures of the imaginary] child…he remains in the Montgomery County Jail…suspended without pay…
Anyone who trusts Zuckerberg is out of his mind:
[The Facebook chatbot]’s public stream is perhaps the most depressing feed I’ve come across in a long time. It’s full of people sharing intimate information about themselves — things like thoughts on grief, or child custody, or financial distress. And it seems like some people aren’t aware that what they’re sharing will end up on a public feed…some…might have clicked the wrong button and didn’t realize what they were doing…conversations with [the chatbot] aren’t public by default…so, maybe some of those people wanted the world to read their…chats [with a machine]. And others, maybe not…If a person uses the voice chat function, you can actually listen to recordings of their conversation if they’re shared…
“Whatever you chat about with the computer, just picture Zuckerberg watching.” And every other denizen of Facebook, too.
No parody of puritanism could be as absurd as the current reality in Florida:
In a chilling meeting of the Florida State Board of Education…a school district superintendent was publicly browbeaten and repeatedly threatened with criminal prosecution [because]…he…had not unilaterally and permanently removed a list of 55 books from school libraries…[using the ludicrous excuse of] “parents’ rights” [despite the fact that] no Hillsborough County parent had objected to the books at issue. Rather, the State Board had summarily declared that the…books were “pornography”, even though none of the books met the legal definition of pornographic material…[and] many…are award-winning literature that have been read by students for years…Board [members were angry]…that…[Superintendent Van] Ayres i[mplied that]…librarians…[knew their jobs better than politicians. The gang of psychopaths responded by vomiting abuse at Ayres, calling him and the librarians “]illiterate[“]…”child abusers”…and…”garbage”…and [demanded all the] librarians…be “terminated immediately”…[also threatening them with] criminal prosecution…
Though Hillsborough County educational officials oppose tyranny, unfortunately the same cannot be said for its sheriff and cops.
Civil liberties violations only start with those politicians have chosen to demonize:
[The] Trump…[regime has] provided deportation [thug]s with personal data — including the immigration status — on millions of Medicaid enrollees…[in order] to [facilitate mass deportations]…Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, citing legal and ethical concerns…[but henchmen of Minister of Pestilence] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the dataset handed over to the Department of Homeland Security…and…were given just 54 minutes on [June 10th] to comply…The dataset includes the information of people living in California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C., all of which allow non-U.S. citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that pay for their expenses using only state taxpayer dollars. CMS transferred the information just as the [regime] was ramping up its [pogrom]s in Southern California…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Tweetzilla
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged abortion, adolescence, advertising, agency denial, apes & monkeys, artificial stupidity, blogging, Bluesky, California, consensual crime, cops, Creating Criminals, ethics, fantasy, fascism, illegal aliens, imaginative fiction, internet, language, left-right myth, politicians, pregnancy, propaganda, psychology, Shame Shame, Swedish model, The Cop Myth, To Molest and Rape, Twitter, Washington DC, yin and yang on June 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »
They're absolutely DESPERATE to force people to listen to them.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-14T04:16:00.895Z
Dr. Zaius' ancestor.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-16T04:37:49.434Z
Textbook megalomania.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-16T17:28:24.241Z
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51233
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-17T18:00:54.379Z
Creating "criminals" with the stroke of a pen is one of the oldest governmental tricks there is. It allows the government to invent enemies where none existed, in order to justify the expenditure of manpower and treasure to "fight" the imaginary self-created evils.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-19T17:06:09.131Z
"Senate Republicans went nuclear" is a hyperbolic lie. Which is a damned shame.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T17:32:04.679Z
On top of being unethical, CGI pictures on social media are nearly always ugly, and often creepy.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-23T17:05:40.213Z
Too bad, so fucking sad.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-24T17:31:59.000Z
Some people on here really are so much in love with being outraged that the evil circus centered in Washington STILL isn't enough for them, so they have to invent deeply stupid things that are nothing to do with themselves to be outraged about.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-25T16:46:54.149Z
One of the things I despise most about Musk is that he has provided ammo to the "solve earthly problems first, hurp derp derp" crowd which has bedeviled space exploration at least since Gemini.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-28T17:51:58.270Z
And since they're FEDERAL secret police, we could even call them the "Secret State Police", or SESTAPO for short.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T17:23:32.825Z
I am begging reporters, in the name of journalistic dignity, to STOP calling Trump's package of tyranny the "One Big Beautiful Bill". It doesn't matter that the regime calls it that; find another term. This one makes anyone who uses it sound like a rather stupid first-grader.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-30T16:50:26.544Z
I must point out that "Swedish model" regimes have tried to do this with sex work clients for years, prosecuting them for paying sex workers in other countries where it's legal. Nobody cared, and the precedent was set.The avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-05-31T17:06:35.965Z
Mad emperor is still mad.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-01T07:32:33.397Z
It's a testament to the human ability to Not Get It that, in a world where the writing of every critic, philosopher, and scholar in human history is available at their fingertips for reading and consideration, most people still have absolutely no clue what "art" is.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-02T17:54:04.679Z
Cops are overgrown children cosplaying War, with all the rest of us forced into their stupid, childish game without our consent, consuming vast funds from the public treasury and ruining lives by the hundreds of thousands.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-03T17:24:16.608Z
If your response to governmental attempts to ban things is to complain that they should be banning something you dislike instead of something you like, you are part of the problem.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-04T17:17:38.599Z
Your regular reminder that "illegality" is a status defined entirely by the state, which can be changed at the whim of politicians.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-05T16:30:56.462Z
In related news, the administration has announced it will be releasing a PDF of all Trump's sayings from his speeches and social media writings, to be called the "Little Red Book", which will be pushed into all US cell phones via the national emergency alert system and will be impossible to delete.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-06T17:51:08.259Z
If you want people to believe that cops who rob, rape, or murder are a "small and unrepresentative" minority of "bad apples", you must also admit that looters are a "small and unrepresentative" minority of "bad apple" protesters. And the latter aren't protected by QI.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-08T16:59:07.930Z
ORDNUNG WIRD WIEDERHERGESTELLT!
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-09T18:32:57.685Z
Once again: PLEASE stop calling LLMs "AI". When you keep reinforcing the techlord-promoted fantasy that these algorithms are a kind of "intelligence", YOU are helping to push mentally-ill people into belief that these systems are more than electronic parrots. futurism.com/chatgpt-ment…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-10T17:47:16.452Z
Remember how bird-brains kept claiming that the WORST POSSIBLE USE for this technology was putting celebrity faces on porn actresses, and I warned y'all it would soon be used to manufacture police state propaganda?I won't even *bother* saying "I told you so" this time. Except I guess I just did.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-11T17:14:26.984Z
I have a joke about Tantalus, but I won't tell it to you.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-13T17:52:16.380Z
Politicians don't think like that. To a politician, for adolescents to be Schrödinger people, either adult or "child" as an "official" requires, is a FEATURE, not a bug. That's why they're now trying to extend adolescence to 25 for men and menopause for women.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-14T17:57:21.198Z
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." – Frank Herbert, "Dune"
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T17:07:24.060Z
Politics has never been "cool" at any point in human history. It's just that politicians and their fans DELUDE themselves into BELIEVING that they are cool. Even dour shitheads like Cromwell, Robespierre and Mao thought they were fucking rock stars.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T17:07:32.168Z
Since this is all fantasy anyhow: I use my time line converter to dramatically slow my progress through the time stream so that I can set free everyone tied to the tracks, remove all the passengers from both trolleys, then tie the person who proposed the problem to the tracks and walk away.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T17:20:27.161Z
It's always interesting to watch people who truly believe in "right-left" idiocy get all confused when politicians or other "officials" behave in a way that doesn't neatly fit into one or the other of those boxes.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T17:11:18.210Z
Accurate headline: "Women are 20% less likely than men to be intellectually lazy, and 25% more likely to recognize that computers can't actually think, regardless of advertising claims to the contrary."www.ft.com/content/7f0f…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T15:34:37.150Z
Scream, Throwback Thursday, Scream
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged agency denial, Blasphemy, blogging, ethics, If Men Were Angels, language, law, left-right myth, neofeminism, propaganda, psychology on June 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The artificial and long-outmoded political framework of “right” and “left”…was a poor fit to real political landscapes when it was first used in reference to the French Assembly more than 200 years ago, and has become completely worthless since. – “Blasphemy”
What is a moral person to do when the right action is prohibited by law or immoral behavior demanded by it? – “The Suppression of Virtue”
A wisely-organized system would…limit…both the ability of all humans to exercise power over others, and the opportunity for individuals to surrender power to self-proclaimed leaders. – “If Men Were Angels”
To a writer, words are tools intended to convey meaning and express beauty; to governments, words are tools intended to obscure meaning and oppress nonconformity. – “Obfuscation and Demonization“
Throwback Thursday vs Frankenstein
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, agency denial, bad customers, Bad Girls, blogging, consensual crime, fantasy, genitalia, hysteria, Imagination Pinned Down, neofeminism, propaganda, PSA, psychology, Shazam!, violence vs. sex workers, yin and yang on June 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »
There is no therapy for poor judgment. – “Public Service Announcement”
Just as we ignore those topological elements of a cloud or inkblot which do not fit the meaning our minds have imposed upon it, so do we forget or distort elements of a memory which fail to conform to the schema in which we have embedded it, or even invent elements which were not in reality present, but which the schema predicts should be. – “Imagination Pinned Down”
As long as we allow and even encourage our governments to criminalize private, consensual behaviors with no clear victim and no actual corpus delicti, lots more people are going to be senselessly killed and lots of senseless killers are going to get away with it. – “Rotten to the Core”
Most modern prohibitionist propaganda is based upon depicting the prostitute as a mentally inferior creature whose statements about her own thoughts and feelings cannot be trusted. – “Ninon de l’Enclos”
There is no magical moment of “Shazam!” at which teens are mystically imbued with the ability to consent. – “Legal Fiction“
Diary #780
Posted in Diary, tagged Grace, psychology, Sunset on June 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Two dear friends came to visit me on Sunday, and we had relaxing evenings that night and last night. Since neither lives very close, this is the first time I’ve seen them since Grace died; in fact, the last time they were here was last August, and all four of us sat around the atrium high as kites and had a ball. This time was a bit more sedate, as I expected, but despite my imbibing enough to considerably reduce my inhibitions, I didn’t cry much (except for once, a little, right at the beginning) and I don’t think I overwhelmed them talking too much about Grace. But even if I had done, it wouldn’t have mattered to them; they both knew how much I loved Grace, and they both can see how difficult adjusting to life without her has been for me. And one simple definition of a “friend” could be, “Someone who is there for you when you need them.” In fact, that’s part of what made Grace so special; she was always there for me, so much so that I may have sometimes taken her for granted. I believe some of the pain I’m feeling comes from a sort of nebulous guilt that I didn’t always show her enough how much she mattered to me, especially in the first half of the Teens when I was dealing with the dissolution of my marriage and my move to Seattle. It’s not that she ever grumbled about it; though she was perfectly comfortable grumbling about everybody else who annoyed her, to her I was always “my little angel” who could walk on water. I reckon part of me wishes I really could work miracles as she seemed to think, and that I could have somehow arrested or at least slowed the gradual collapse of her body, so that I could’ve had at least a few more years of her unflagging support and companionship.
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